Explored the history, operations, and career pathways in aerospace, emphasizing professional engineering culture and leadership.

Covered principles of flight and spacecraft operations, including aerodynamics, propulsion, vehicle dynamics, flight control, and orbital mechanics, with hands-on problem-solving for aircraft and spacecraft systems. 

Studied fundamentals of aerospace structural mechanics, including statics, deformation, stress analysis, torsion, beam theory, and strain measurement. 

Developed a strong understanding of gas properties, thermodynamics, and conservation laws, and applied these principles to analyze compressible and incompressible flows. Learned to model and predict flow behavior through shocks, expansion waves, friction, heat addition, and variable-area ducts.

Learned to design aerospace systems through requirements definition, MBSE, project management, FMEA, and verification & validation. Gained hands-on experience in manufacturing decisions, balancing quality, cost, and timing, and verified designs against requirements guided by real-world industry experts and practices.

Covered stress and strain analysis, torsion, beam theory, shear, bending, and deflection in 1D and 3D systems, and energy methods, with applications to finite element modeling and MATLAB-based problem solving. 

Studied air-breathing and rocket propulsion, including turbojets, turbofans, and liquid/solid rockets, with an introduction to advanced concepts like Hall thrusters and pulsed plasma thrusters, emphasizing thermodynamics, combustion, and propulsion system analysis. 

Covered space flight mechanics, including orbital dynamics, transfers, maneuvers, gravity assists, spacecraft attitude and rotational dynamics, stability, momentum management, and orbital simulation using MATLAB.

Learned core concepts in computer science and computational methods for aerospace, including C programming, algorithms, computational complexity, numerical methods, signal decomposition, linear algebra, discretization, stability analysis, and embedded systems with sensors, actuators, and hybrid system modeling. 

Focused on the final stages of project development, including physical and numerical verification of designs via V&V plans culminating in the Flight Readiness Review (FRR), flight safety checks and test flights as well as sustaining team culture through knowledge transfer, leadership development, and promoting professionalism.

Gained foundational knowledge in classical and modern control theory, including linearization, system stability, time and frequency response, root locus, PD/PID control, and gain/phase margins. Developed proficiency in state-space methods, covering state transition matrices, optimal control, observers, and Kalman filtering.

Explored discrete mathematics with a focus on logic, set theory, number theory, combinatorics, probability, relations, graphs, and trees. Gained foundational skills in algorithms, recursion, mathematical induction, and number fields, emphasizing problem-solving with integers and practical applications in computing and cryptography. 

Gained proficiency in linear algebra, including vectors, vector spaces, matrices, determinants, linear transformations, eigenvalues, and eigenvectors, with practical applications. Developed skills in constructing and understanding mathematical proofs within the context of linear algebra. 

Studied the structure, properties, and processing of materials including metals, ceramics, polymers, and composites. Learned key concepts such as bonding, crystallography, defects, diffusion, mechanical properties, dislocations, strengthening mechanisms, phase diagrams, phase transformations, precipitation hardening, corrosion, and electrical properties.

Learned vector descriptions of force, position, velocity, and acceleration in fixed and moving frames; analyzed particle and rigid body kinetics using Newton’s laws, work-energy, and impulse-momentum methods; studied mechanical vibrations and applied Euler’s equations to simple oscillators. 

Gained foundational C++ programming skills in key computer science concepts such as data abstraction, recursion, generic programming, inheritance, polymorphism, encapsulation, dynamic memory, and higher-order functions. Covered arrays, vectors, stacks, queues, linked lists, and binary trees.

Explored statistical and probabilistic methods with engineering applications, including quality control, sampling, and data analysis. Gained proficiency in probability theory, combinatorics, discrete and continuous distributions, hypothesis testing, regression, ANOVA, and categorical data analysis. 

Learned to describe data via graphical displays, calculate probabilities, and apply discrete and continuous probability distributions. Gained skills in statistical inference, including parameter estimation, hypothesis testing, confidence intervals, and maximum likelihood estimation. Developed an understanding of relationships between quantitative variables and applied simple linear regression analysis.

Participated in sponsored, team-based projects at early-stage startups, gaining hands-on experience in applied technology development from research to commercialization. Learned to apply the Business Model Canvas and Porter’s 5 Forces for strategic analysis, develop technical strategies as a CTO, manage projects effectively, communicate results with sponsors, and evaluate the impact of engineering solutions on business outcomes.